Fall Movies 2015: Tom Hiddleston Not a Demigod in 'Crimson Peak' and 'I Saw the Light,' but Proves Impressive

Strauss, Bob, Pasadena Star-News

The Norse god of mischief Loki can magically change into anyone.
The versatile British actor Tom Hiddleston, who plays Thor's evil
stepbrother in the Marvel Comics movies, proves pretty chameleonlike
himself in two fall films, "Crimson Peak" and "I Saw the Light," in
theaters Oct. 16 and Nov. 27, respectively.

The former is Mexican genre auteur Guillermo del Toro's
("Hellboy," "Pacific Rim," "Pan's Labyrinth") 1890s Gothic ghost
story. Mia Wasikowska is a young American heiress getting
progressively creeped out by her new husband, Hiddleston's
duplicitous English baronet/inventor Sir Thomas Sharpe, and his
freaky sister (Jessica Chastain) at their elaborately crumbling
mansion on the the blood-colored title bluff.

"Thomas Sharpe is a character who confounds and subverts the
expectations of the audience and of the characters within the
drama," Cambridge-educated Hiddleston explains. "He could probably
be defined as an anti-hero, framed initially as the mysterious,
dashing stranger from the foreign shore who captures the heart of
the heroine. Then you very quickly suspect that he may have less
than good intentions. Once they arrive at the house, the story takes
an extraordinary turn.

"Thomas carries the oppressive weight of the past around but is
so desperate to escape into the new world, mirrored by his dreams of
becoming a great industrialist, someone who will literally refashion
the future in a practical way," the actor continues. "But he's a man
with secrets that seem to overwhelm him and his trajectory in life. …

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